did you know that...
-During original WoW alpha, Scholomance was supposed to be an outdoor elite area (probably where Sorrow Hill is now), but the developers made it so big and good that they decided to make it an instance.
-At the beginning, there were shields and bucklers. Rogues and Hunters could use bucklers, but they later removed them, and Rogues/Hunters couldn't equip shields anymore. There are still bucklers in game, but they are labeled as "Shields".
-Survival talents for Hunters was the "melee" tree and had a Lacerate ability which dealt less than 100 damage at level 60.
-Discipline tree for Priests was supposed to be a "melee" tree (like Monks in some other games), which is why Inner Fire increased attack power.
-In Vanilla beta, Dwarves could be Mages.
-Hunters were using focus as their resource system, but it regenerated while standing still, and was very overpowered so they gave them mana instead.
-Several classes had talents which increased stats by a raw number (for example 20/40/60/80/100 Spell Damage (not percent but just 100 Spell Damage)), and they didn't scale at all with gear/level.
-There was almost no Spell Damage on gear during early Vanilla. It wasn't a strange thing to see a level 60 Mage with less than 30 Spell Damage.
-The reason why there are so many cloaks with exactly the same stats in the starting areas was because cloaks also had armor types (for example cloth/leather/mail/plate cloaks).
-There were two big islands off the western coast of STV, which were removed, but if you go far enough with mount and water walking, you can reach the area where they were. You will see that you are zoning in Isle of Doctor Lapidis or Gillijim's Isle.
-Elwynn Forest, Stormwind and Westfall were the first zones that Blizzard made back before 2001. That is why they are crappier than other starting zones.
-Azshara has very little quests because Blizzard has designed it with a terrible layout, and they realized that too late. They thought most people would hate it so much, so they just didn't bother and left it for future expansions (Cataclysm).
-Their original design (back before Alpha) was that Horde and Alliance each had only 100 quests in the game. (Was said in a recent interview).
-At release, there were no quests at all in Silithus (or anything important), and it was added in a later patch.
-There were much less quests past level 50 at release, so players complained that they had to grind mobs in order to level, and Blizzard added more quests later.
-Blackrock Spire, Stratholme and Scholomance were all tuned for 15 people raids, and they were still way too hard even with 15 people, which they later toned down to 5 players (except for UBRS which is 10 player).
-Before TBC was released, you were able to blink through Deadmines portal and glitch it, cast slow fall off an unfinished tunnel, and reach a very early version of Hellfire Peninsula. Here is a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiL64...eature=related
-Emerald Dream was supposed to be released in Vanilla, as either zone/raid/continent. They scrapped it, but there are Emerald Dream zones in the game files, though not accessible in any way on official servers.
-T2 sets dropped in Molten Core, and had different graphics.
-Epic Mounts at release were just recolored normal mounts without armor. They removed them and replaced with armored mounts later (R.I.P Ivory Raptor).
-Tauren didn't have a mount at all, they had a Plainsrunning ability.
-Ironforge was by far the largest city in game, because it had two floors instead of one, and the one which exists today is smaller than before. The Great Forge was also visible in game. Here is a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ZKb61xxX0
-Gnomeregan was supposed to be a city like all others, Ironforge had an elevator which led into Gnomeregan, but they turned it into an instance because it would create faction imbalance.
-Undercity was even more complicated to navigate, so they removed the second floor (it is still accessible in game).
-Humans and Orcs were the first Races Blizzard created in game.
-Human females and Orc males used a slightly different model.
-You would be scared if you saw how Female Trolls looked in alpha.
-Goldshire was a lot bigger, and it resembled a real village. But Blizzard realized that they can't make other starting zone hubs that big, and they removed a lot of buildings in Goldshire so it would be even for all zones.
-Overall Graphics in WoW are definitely improved since it's release, but in alpha, the graphics looked more realistic (but lower quality than now), and they toned them down.
-Naxxramas is still physically present in Eastern Plaguelands today. There is no way to enter it or see it (it is invisible). If you logged off your character in old Naxxramas before WotLK was released, you would appear in EPL Naxx with portals to Northrend. Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpLjxvPBE8M
-Undead were able to communicate with the Alliance.
-Undead were really Undead, so they could be targeted by Exorcism and such spells (back when it only worked on Undead and Demons).
-Will of the Forsaken was a passive buff which made you immune to Sleep, Polymorph and Fear effects. That didn't last long.
-Cloaks weren't visible at all until beta, due to player request.
-CC effects didn't have reduced duration on PvP targets, so a Rogue or Mage could CC you up to 1 min (or more).
-Mages had an invisibility spell earlier, and you could cast Pyroblast while still invisible. It was removed because of an outcry from other players.
-There were no guards at neutral cities, so most of them were slaughter fests.
-Maraudon was added in a content patch.
-Warrior Charge ability used to teleport you to your target instead of increasing your run speed.
-Wands couldn't auto-shoot so you had to click it each time you wanted to hit.
-Spell schools used to have a skill system similar to todays weapon skills. "Your skill in Fire has increased to 93"
-There was only one flight path and graveyard in the Barrens. Ugh.
-Warlock spell Banish had a 30 minute cooldown for some reason.
-Rogues and Druids had "Feign Death" abilities before they were moved to the Hunter class.
-Mages had an ability called "Khadgar's Unlocking" which was like Rogue pick lock spell.
-The only Enchanting trainer at higher level was in Uldaman.
-Each major city had it's own special auction house, so Darnassus was pretty useless.
-Although Azshara crater, a scrapped battleground, never appeared in game, it is in the game files.
-All wings of Scarlet Monastery was once a single instance, but they have split it into four because it was too big.
-The Black Morass instance (without the mobs and bosses) was in the game files since 2004.
-Hellfire Peninsula was supposed to be a 54-60 zone.
-Andorhal in Western Plaguelands was a very hard elite area (MC geared players had problems with it). Araj the Summoner was tuned for 20+ people. It also had ruined walls around it's borders, which were later removed.
-There are Programmer isle and Designer Isle in the game files but aren't accessible.
-Player Housing was briefly tested and scrapped completely. Here is an interesting picture http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...Housing3.0.jpg
-If you look at the beginning of the original WoW cinematic, you'll notice half of Silithus is missing on the map. That's because it wasn't there at that time.
-Here are some more realistic graphics I was talking about http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...Ashenvale1.jpg
-The original Hellfire Peninsula resembled the WCIII HFP a lot more. Here is a very old picture of it http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/8...20Outlands.jpg
-Blizzard definitely wasn't wrong when they said Emerald Dream was gonna look awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5oHucJj90s
-The very first legendary item that dropped was a necklace (http://www.wowwiki.com/Talisman_of_Binding_Shard) that dropped off Baron Geddon. It was removed from the loot table, but the player who got it was allowed to keep it. Here is his armory http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/Blackrock/Savorx/ (You can't see it because it shows an error).
-Hunters were the last class to be introduced in Beta.
-Paladin Judgement had a cast time.